


forget about mine

by voiDce



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Character Study, Codependency, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Relationship, it's not unrequited i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 12:52:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18073760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voiDce/pseuds/voiDce
Summary: Winter, 1943: somewhere in Europe.In the abandoned husk of what used to be a bar, Bucky sits alone with a hand wrapped around broken glass. He drinks, draws vague shapes in the ashes… and remembers.





	1. fur and teeth

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the post-train assault scene during CA:TFA, this piece was initially written and performed for an exhibition in 2017 as a monologue from Bucky’s perspective, which prior to that had been drafted as a monologue from Steve’s perspective… And then I couldn’t get it out of my head, so I adapted it (again) for AO3. It’s also the longest piece of fiction I’ve ever written, outside of plays and scripts! What an adventure. Title taken from the song “Small Hands” in Keaton Henson’s 2010 album, “Dear.” It is… a very Steve/Bucky song - give it a listen if you haven’t already. This work does contain cursing, if that's not your thing. Hope you enjoy!

 

Tattered curtains sway ominously on their remaining hooks despite the thick of the air as Bucky frowns into the dusty bottle in his hand. He swirls the last of its contents in a slow, sad mockery of a Midwestern storm—one of the few, brave, little glass soldiers left intact, carrying on the fight just for him. It’s not his first drink, and it sure as hell won’t be his last. He polishes off the bottle unceremoniously, and stands.

He’s still much too sober for the mess in his head.

Sober’s what landed him here in the first place, hiding from his squad like a dying stray in the scorched remains of what used to be bustling city. Now, he’s alone, surrounded only by dust, broken glass, and the ghosts of everyday people.

Worn boots scratch along the charred wood paneling of the floor as he moves to find another bottle, the crackle of debri beneath his feet an unwelcome disturbance to the otherwise hollow quiet in the building. The ash settles again, and Bucky remembers.

He remembers war, he remembers girls, he remembers Howard Stark and his fanciful hovering car.

He remembers being prepared to bury his best friend since he was just ten years old.

Back then, the star-spangled idiot was all bark without a lick of bite to back up his bone-deep convictions, but he played the hero anyway. Steve and his blind willpower were a force to be reckoned with, convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that even the gentlest breeze couldn’t knock him off his feet as easily as it moved stray leaves into the gutters of the Brooklyn streets. In reality, he was nothing more than a scrawny, scrappy little kid, throwing his puny weight at whatever bullies he could find. Or at least, that’s what Bucky thought when he first found him. With fire in his eyes and his back to a wall, Steve stood in an alleyway, fists ready for a fight, and hurling taunts at a couple of older boys with rocks in their hands and he’d looked _so small_ that day—

 

_“Back off! What d’you want with him anyway? Bunch’a bullies.”_

 

With a shake of his head, Bucky pulls a cigarette out of the half-smoked crumpled pack he’d found in some dead HYDRA sap’s pocket two ambushes and three scuffles ago, lights it, and opens the next bottle he can find. After a couple of drags, he puts the lip of the cheap whiskey he’s commandeered to his mouth and drinks. Breathes. Drinks. Inhales another couple of drags from the cigarette, and then takes another long pull of whiskey of on top of that, just to be safe. Booze doesn’t work quite so well on him as it used to.

Whether that’s the stress of war or his own growing problem is anyone’s guess.

The minutes stretch as Bucky stews in a haze of cigarette smoke and history.

 

_There’d been a cat, then._

_Hiding right behind Steve, the two of them made an odd-looking pair. It was a mangy little thing, all hackles and wild eyes and crooked tail… but not a lick of fear on its face. Anticipation, maybe, but not fear._

 

The scene that plays in Bucky’s head is almost funny, like a comic in the Sunday paper. Two big, burly boys versus barely half a boy and an ugly scrap of fur and teeth.

He keeps these moments close, remembers them clear as a photograph to be cherished all through the rain and mud and fire and cold nights. HYDRA may have fucked with Bucky’s head more than he likes to admit, but he’d know this memory anywhere.

 

_His eyes looked exactly like the cat’s._

 

Bucky finishes his cigarette and watches smoke rise from his mouth as the glow of the ash grows smaller and smaller. He pushes the butt into the dusty wood of the table before wiping a dirty hand across his face.

Every part of this city is broken beyond repair.

It’s impossible to forget, even for a moment. He takes in the splintered wood and shards of glass scattered around him—pieces of bottles and windows and mirrors and clock faces, all indiscernible from each other now—and he wonders where all the people who used to drink here went to. How many of them made it out?

How many are still here, long dead and buried beneath the rubble?

Bucky picks at the worn label of the bottle, and takes a long pull that doesn’t even burn on its way down. He does it again, and then crushes the last flickering embers of his cigarette against the table.

He thinks about Steve.

Full circle.

This time, Bucky allows the scene to play out.

 

_The day they meet, Bucky gets caught trying to pocket gum at the Bohack’s out on Jefferson. The shopkeep, a crotchety old man with a thinning mustache, gives him the quick boot and a stern warning not to show his face in there again._

_Bucky’s honestly not looking to find any more trouble on his way home, but something about the scene in the alleyway stops him in his tracks._

_It isn’t until one of the meatheads actually throws a punch that knocks Steve flat on his ass that Bucky does anything at all, but seconds later and against his better judgment, he’s right in the middle of it all with his knuckles slamming hard and fast against another boy’s cheek._

_Between the two, Steve and Bucky manage to give the boys a few good knocks before their asses are handed to them, and the cat gets away in the middle of all the chaos without so much as a second glance at its saviors. “Ungrateful little shit,” he grouches. Still, Bucky supposes it all worked out fine._

_They sit there for a while after, nursing their collection of bumps and scrapes on the cracked cement. When the quiet finally gets more uncomfortable than the new bruises darkening their skin, Steve looks him dead in the eye with all the righteous indignation a boy his age can muster and—_

_“I could’a handled those punks myself, you know.”_

_Despite sporting a bloody nose and a wide gap where his big tooth should be, the fire in his eyes dares Bucky to say otherwise. Sore and surly as he is after taking several kicks to the ribs for a complete stranger who hasn’t even muttered so much as a “thank you,” Bucky very nearly does. But, right when he opens his mouth to argue, the little trail of blood coming from Steve’s nostril falls into the line between his pursed lips. As Steve spits defiantly on the ground beside him, all of the sharp words in Bucky’s head evaporate on his tongue._

_“I’m Bucky,” he says instead, plainly._

_The clumsy introduction tumbles out of his mouth before his brain can catch up, but he can’t bring himself to regret it._

_A few moments later, a grubby, delicate hand comes up to meet his, and Bucky realizes he’s stretched his own arm out for a handshake._

_“Steve,” comes the reply, soft and tired. “...And thanks, I guess.”_

_“Anytime,” Bucky smirks back, tightening his grip on Steve’s hand as the smaller boy stares into him like a puzzle he desperately wants to put together._

_And in that moment, staring into the boy’s narrow blue eyes with all the certainty and conviction that naive children possess, Bucky knows he’ll never mistake soft for weak again._

_He knows—he’ll be attached to this boy by the belt of his pants until the end of his days._

 

Looking back, Bucky can’t help thinking how fitting it all is. Steven Grant Rogers, big damn hero since the day he was conceived… and James Buchanan Barnes, the guy that fights by his side like the good little soldier he is, because it felt like the thing to do.


	2. cold sweats, aching bones

_“Wow, hey. You’re pretty good with a pencil and paper.”_

_“You’re pretty good as a model.”_

_“Oh yeah? Think I could make us some money like this?”_

_“Not with a nose like that, you can’t.”_

_“Hey!”_

_They play at fighting like brothers, the kind that share blood and eat at the same table every night, clueless of what’s to come for them the day they go to war. Bucky drinks in every second of Steve’s attention—his perpetually cold hands, his warm laugh, an awkward tumble onto the floor, and a broken pencil._

_“Aw, shit. Sorry, Stevie.”_

_What he really means is “I love you.”_

_The answering “watch your mouth or I’ll put soap in it” from Steve sounds an awful lot like “I love you, too.”_

 

Bucky trails a knuckle fondly over the crooked bridge of his own nose, a lonely mime of a game long forgotten and a hand that didn’t used to be his. He wonders if this is masochism or nostalgia.

The bottle he’s been working on sits empty in front of him. As he tries to light another cigarette, a chill picks up and whistles through the jagged windows, blowing out his match as soon as he strikes it. A few stray snowflakes make their home on his face, and Bucky’s standing before he knows it. He goes to find something else, anything else to drink, and the bottle’s open before he even makes it back to his seat.

Bucky hates winter.

 

_He’s nineteen years old with thirty-six cents and a brand new rubber eraser for Steve in his pocket._

_As he walks home through the nicer part of town from his latest odd job—scaling fish for the crotchety old woman who runs the market down the block—Bucky takes note of the children and families playing in the street. He watches the wads of snow chucked back and forth, an assortment of kids just old enough to talk all the way to the ones that border on calling themselves adults, and he doesn’t understand why they laugh they way they do, how they can celebrate the first fall of snow each year when, for anyone without the kind of money these people have, there’s nothing fun or exciting about it._

_For Steve, the first chill brings with it the routine onset of cold sweats, aching bones, and a cough that never stops. For Bucky, it’s five months of prayers that he sends up every night to whatever merciful thing might hear them and think to lend a hand._

_“Please, please, please, don’t let today be the day his heart stops.”_

_They bunk together most nights to share heat, Steve’s teeth chattering and lungs wheezing, fevers on and off and on again as Bucky wraps himself as tightly around him as he can underneath their sparse sheets. The asthma attacks are always the worst. Steve wakes up choking in the middle of the night like his lungs are full of mud, and there’s never a damn thing Bucky can do to stop it. So he turns Steve on his side, rubs his back, and hides his face in the crook of Steve’s neck so he won’t ever see the desperation in Bucky’s eyes._

_With every passing day, Bucky grows more and more certain that one night, he’s going to fall asleep and wake up the next morning to a body that no longer shakes with the cold._

_One day, Steve’s critical, beautiful, impossibly expressive eyes won’t open._

 

Bucky looks down at his hands, shaking where they grip the bottle tight enough in front of him that he’s surprised it hasn’t shattered between his fingers. One by one, he takes his fingers off the glass, and breathes.

Over the years, Steve became a non-negotiable part of his life. Bucky’s entire world, from the day they met to where he currently sits drinking himself stupid, has consisted of a scrawny, spitfire boy with hair like sunshine and eyes like the sky—and that was that, no room for anything else.

The joke of it all, though, is that Bucky kind of liked it way.

But Steve’s different now, _they’re_ different now, and it’s not Steve and Bucky against the world anymore.

 

_When U.S. starts recruiting young men to join the war, Bucky’s hesitant. He doesn’t give a damn about patriotism, he couldn't care less about glory, but the steady paycheck sounds tempting. He’s not delusional enough to think he’ll make a difference, but Steve can’t stop pestering him about it. Bucky knows for a fact that they won’t take Steve before they even walk through those doors, before he sees the way the nurses look at him and the onslaught of too-loud whispers— “poor boy, what is he doing here?” “he’s so small,” “can’t be older than sixteen,” “do you see his brother, though?”_

_He doesn’t bother to correct them about any of it, and Steve valiantly pretends he doesn’t hear._

_Because no matter how incredible and brave and kind and smart as a whip he is, Steve still isn’t good enough for them._

_And so Bucky goes, and he trains, and he gets knocked around and shot at and barely escapes with his life. And he sends the money he makes home, in the hopes it’s enough to to pay the bills. He entertains the fantasy that maybe Steve’s finally living comfortably. Maybe he’ll buy a blanket that can actually keep him warm at night, some pencils and sketchpads—or hell, maybe even a radiator. If it meant Steve could go back to school and finally get recognition for the incredible artist he is, Bucky would stay in Europe forever._

_But the stubborn fuck went off and became a goddamn science experiment-superhero instead._

 

Bucky downs his next drink like it’ll save him from whatever reverie he’s been stuck in since the moment he sat down among the dirt and ash. But his eyes struggle to stay open, and behind them there’s only blonde hair and a crooked smile.

 

_Nowadays, bullets barely fucking tickle for Steve, and clocking him in the face doesn’t do much better._

_Bucky learns that one the hard way, in the middle of yet another fight about how to approach an ambush. That isn’t why he’s actually mad, of course, it never is. But he can’t seem to find the words to make Steve understand that he still worries._

_Of course, he still worries. Call it habit, call it muscle memory, but it’s so deeply ingrained in him that he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to stop. Bucky watches helplessly every time Steve so much as clears his throat, arms reaching out without a second thought to grab at Steve’s shoulder, just in case it’s an asthma attack._ _These days, it never is._

_And that’s supposed to be good._

_Damn it_ _, it’s supposed to be amazing. An impossible feat of scientific development, the god-send he spent the better part of a decade praying for on every cold night. The reason they could finally sleep without fear._

_But it isn’t, and Bucky hates himself for it, and he runs in circles in his head trying to create the perfect version of this argument with Steve and it never plays the way he wants it to._

_“It’s wrong now, you’re all wrong now, we’re all wrong now—don’t you get it?”_

 

Steve doesn’t need Bucky to worry about him now. He doesn’t need him for much of anything, really, and Bucky racks his brain for any reason why Steve would keep a schmuck like him around, and can’t come up with a single one that isn’t drowning in pity or misplaced nostalgia. After all, anything Bucky can do, Steve’s always been smarter and twice as brave about it. And now, he’s a hundred times better at it, too.

It feels like losing a limb. Something he’s grown up with all his life is stripped away, leaving nothing but the phantom of what used to be behind. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands anymore, if they’re not to protect. He doesn’t know what to do with his legs, if not to run from the latest scuffle Steve’s gotten them into, that they obviously have no way of winning. There’s a crater in his body where Steve—the real Steve, gangly and small and folding perfectly into his arms when the weather got too cold—used to fit.

Lost, like a dog with no master.

He takes a long pull from his bottle.

Before Steve, Bucky was just the bastard son of a drunk dad and a deadbeat mom: the neighborhood menace, a punk kid with sticky fingers and a bad attitude. But Steve was different. He was always good—a hero of the Brooklyn streets and advocate for the needy, no matter how much he needed for himself. He was someone important, someone worth devoting a life to.

Someone who would change the world one day, if his long history of having absolutely zero goddamn sense of self-preservation didn’t stop him first.

Bucky’s known since he was ten.

“Gonna get himself killed one day,” Bucky grumbles to the bones of the city as his shoulder slouches on to the bar for support. “S’what I always said. To anyone who’d listen, s’what I always fuckin’ said.”

As he leans his chin on the counter, he finally begins to doze off with only a single thought left in his head:

“Never would’a thought he’d kill me first.”


End file.
